Saturday, July 1, 2017

I'd like to take a long while, say a few days, to discuss a short film.

Yesterday Ace wrote about a movie he likes called "The Lego Batman Movie." He likes it well enough to watch it three times. I've seen something like that in Netflix results but I was never interested, and the one that is available right now and that I watched per his suggestion is called "Lego DC Comics: Batman Be-Leagured. It's crap.

Next to that on Netflix search results is another called "BatKid Begins." I resisted. I had no idea what it is about. I watched anyway and liked it enough to watch twice.

The story is about the the boy diagnosed with leukemia, Miles, whose mother made a request to Make-A-Wish foundation for her son to be Batman. The film is told from the point of view of Patricia Wilson, a coordinator at Make-A-Wish.

We're familiar with this story from the news three years ago. We already know that San Francisco put on a big bash to fulfill the boy's wish, and we've seen videos of a few of the stunts. It looks big, but not all that impressive. The boy didn't look particularly into it. The clips that we've seen and what we can imagine of the rest do not give the event its full justice.

At the time the boy was of the age that when he puts on a costume he transforms completely into the costume. A natural method actor. His mother explaining this reminds me of an incident at the Denver Museum of Natural History as I had just parked my car and was on the sidewalk going inside. Suddenly a school bus pulled up, the doors flew open and children his age poured out. It was Halloween time and all of the kids had on masks. Half of the masks were mere faces of animals Xeroxed in quantity and colored by the children themselves and held on by loosely tied strings. Calling them rudimentary would overstate their production value. They were trashy masks but enough to spark the imagination of the children who were all characterizing their make believe animals, roaring like tigers, clawing like bears, darting like deer, and the like. I was instantly transported to childhood myself. I recalled being like that.

Uncharacteristically, for presents, Miles asks for costumes, for themed pajamas, for clothes. He likes to become something else. After discovering Batman, Miles like to pretend that he's actually Batman. He's been exposed to other comic book super heroes but he keeps returning to Batman. Why? His parents, a farming family living in a small town, think they have the answer. It was his first super hero. Because Batman is a normal person who made himself super hero. Because Batman always helps other people.

When Patricia Wilson was presented with Miles' case she didn't know exactly where to start. Meeting Batman would be one thing, while being Batman quite another different wish altogether. What does that even mean? What does becoming Batman mean to Miles? What type of child is Miles? What does Miles have on his mind for his wish. What will it entail?

Patricia did similar wish projects before. One girl wanted to be an opera singer. Make-A-Wish provided an auditorium filled with 200 volunteers. Another similar wish was a boy who wanted to design a video game that turned out to be a massive and expensive and long project. This is the wish that put Patricia in contact with Eric Johnstone who worked for a year with the boy. The boy wanted to give the game based on fighting the disease that he had to other children with the same disease. The selflessness of this wish and the solid work involved in bringing it to fruition provoked the Dali Lama to present both Erick Johnstone and the boy with an award.

Patricia thought up a plan to have Eric Johnstone be Batman to Miles Mini-Me type BatKid.

Her plan was conceived modestly. She'd need two motorcycle cops and two parking spaces. The project would be moved to San Francisco as Gotham. The action will start in the hotel room.

The Trump administration said Friday it will begin arresting parents and others who hire smugglers to bring children into the U.S., in an effort to break up human-trafficking operations.

The new “surge initiative” by Immigration and Customs Enforcement marks the latest get-tough approach to immigration by the federal government since President Donald Trump took office.

It is also a sharp departure from policies in place under President Barack Obama, during which tens of thousands of young people crossed the border illegally. The children were then placed with sponsors—typically parents, close relatives or family friends—who cared for the minors while their cases moved through the immigration court system.

The government said it plans to arrest the sponsors.

“ICE aims to disrupt and dismantle end-to-end the illicit pathways used by transnational criminal organizations and human-smuggling facilitators,” agency spokeswoman Sarah Rodriguez said. “The sponsors who have placed children directly into harm’s way by entrusting them to violent criminal organizations will be held accountable.”

A Democratic congressman has proposed convening a special committee of psychiatrists and other doctors whose job would be to determine if President Donald Trump is fit to serve in the Oval Office.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who also teaches constitutional law at American University, has predictably failed to attract any Republicans to his banner.

But the U.S. Constitution's 25th Amendment does allow for a majority of the president's cabinet, or 'such other body as Congress may by law provide,' to decide if an Oval Office occupant is unable to carry out his duties – and then to put it to a full congressional vote.

Vice President Mike Pence would also have to agree, which could slow down the process – or speed it up if he wanted the levers of power for himself.

The 25th Amendment has been around since shortly after the John F. Kennedy assassination, but Congress has never formed its own committee in case it's needed to judge a president's mental health.

This is not to take anything away from Williams, whose athleticism stuns me into a near-faint. But even McEnroe’s detractors have had to grudgingly acknowledge that if Williams were playing with the men, at best, her superb athleticism and mental strength might occasionally earn her a win. That’s a pretty strange definition of “best tennis player in the world.”... Tennis, after all, is a court, a moderate amount of equipment, and some highly detailed rules for determining who wins. The best tennis player is the person who can most regularly defeat the other players under those rules. Unless some sort of terrible plague wipes out hundreds of top men’s tennis players, that person will never be Serena Williams.

McEnroe got into hot water for suggesting maybe Serena was not the best tennis player... From the NYPost story: McEnroe said he would place Williams “like 700 in the world” if she played on the men’s tour. “Best female player ever — no question. If she had to just play the circuit — the men’s circuit — that would be an entirely different story,”

Via Instapundit: The Treasury is set to run out of cash in October, which may lead to a default on debt obligations or payment delays for government programs, according to a report from the Congressional Budget Office.

On March 15, 2017, the suspension of the debt limit expired and since then the Treasury has been able to borrow additional funds without violating the debt ceiling.

"The Congressional Budget Office projects that if the debt limit remains unchanged, those measures will be exhausted and the Treasury will most likely run out of cash in early to mid-October," the report states. "The government would then be unable to pay its obligations fully, so it would have to delay making payments for its programs and activities, default on its debt obligations, or both."

Pedro Figueroa-Zarceno, 33, reached the settlement agreement with the city attorney’s office, said Saira Hussain, a staff attorney at the Asian Law Caucus who represented Zarceno. The agreement must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

“We have to insure that each and every local law enforcement official is following those sanctuary policies and we are seeing in Mr. Figueroa’s case that didn’t happen,” Hussain said.

Figueroa-Zarceno sued San Francisco in January for violating its sanctuary city law.

The construction worker said he went to police in December 2015 after getting a call from authorities that his stolen car had been found. Instead of helping him, he said, officers detained him and called immigration authorities.

He was taken into custody by federal authorities outside the police station and was in jail for two months. He has been fighting his deportation since his release.

“What happened to me was very unfair and it was an injustice,” Figueroa-Zerceno said. “I went into the police station to seek help and they didn’t tell me what was happening and they arrested me and treated me badly.”

Thursday, June 29, 2017

What a great way to wake up to news. As you know, this was headlined on Drudge this morning, now moved down to the third row.

Click bait wording. And it worked very well. There is no relation between this and Megyn Kelly.

The link goes to the Daily Beast. But that's not where I went. Instead, I went to Trump Twitter to see if and what he had to say about this himself. I was hoping he would. And he did. And nothing political could fill my heart with more glee. Because it's worse than I had imagined.

Ouch. That hurts all the way over here. In Japan they're going, "Etai-yoooooo!"

Well before being elected POTUS Trump let it known he regards all journalists as cockroaches and said so outright, and by his direct treatment, and here we see him smashing one with his shoe. Brzezinski really is a nutter and she really has been carrying on ridiculously. So I gather, having never watched their program all the way through. Their rantings are so unhinged they're brought to our attention even though we cut cable to rid of lives of them and their ilk.

Cockroaches? Now really. See one of the best PJ Media articles ever written. Roger Simon's "Waiting for Donald." Simon's description of pre-POTUS Trump is depressing for journalists and uplifting for everyone else who doesn't already despise Trump.

And yet these two Trump tweets actually bother quite a lot of old fashioned Republicans. The Ace of Spades write up this morning is discussed on Instapundit and seized upon by his commenters. They couldn't wait to express their displeasure and they have thousand reasons why it's not good. Possible one reason, they don't like Trump or anything that he does, and break that down to a thousand sub reasons as one speaking to their analyst about their ex-wife.

I read so far as two anti Trump concern trollers in comments and called quits on the whole effort. Why bother? We already know everything they have to say. We all do. They're a broken record at this late point. Let them stew in their own misery. For I am nobody's analyst.

Incidentally, you know from following Trump's Twitter accounts yourselves these two soul-crushing wonderful to behold, and especially wonderful to wake up to tweets, are between more substantial tweets keeping his followers up on his work with national gravitas; Democrats misstating Medicaid figures, meeting American energy with key people, No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, sugar deal with Mexico, Kate's Law, Mathis remarks about Syrian chemical attacks. So insisting that a few aggressive counter attack tweets that crush an absurd unhinged woman that has an audience and that reveal Mika Brzezinski had a face lift and both she and Joe Scarborough went begging for position at Mar-a-Lago for three days prior to New Year take the air from the sails of more important matters of State are false on the face of it. That argument only works on other Never Trump types. MSNBC and other Left outlets' continuous caterwauling on everything Trump is as dangerous to America if not more so as any outside attack.

I'm convinced again. This was the best election of my lifetime. I'll not see anything more jolting nor anyhing more properly realigning again.

Via Drudge: While other pizzas — especially the bake-at-home kind you buy at the grocery store — are also made by machine, Zume is noteworthy because it makes fresh, customizable delivery pizza with high-quality ingredients, which it considers to be artisanal even though it is not made by hand. Zume co-founder Julia Collins already has Pepe and Giorgio, two robots, squirting pizza sauce onto the dough, and Marta, another robot, spreading the sauce. Bruno, a robotic arm, lifts the pizza into the oven. The dough is still made by humans. But now that Zume has the doughbot, as they’re calling it, it means that the only part of the pizza assembly process that requires a human touch is the toppings.

“Human beings are great at that step,” Collins said. “When we think of the end-of-arm tools that we would need to pick up a cherry tomato and then a nugget of sausage, it’s hard to find tools that manage that much variety. We don’t have any intention of limiting variety to serve the robots.”

With this technological upgrade, the company can now make and deliver 372 pizzas an hour. That efficiency comes from dramatically reimagining the way pizza can be delivered. Zume is the first company to reduce “dwell time” — a.k.a the 20 minutes your piping-hot pizza spends sliding around in the back of a Honda Accord. They have custom delivery trucks that can bake en route, so pizza will arrive fresh out of the oven. Through analyzing their customer data and using artificial intelligence, they’re also able to predict which pizzas will be popular in certain neighborhoods during certain times, so the truck can be preloaded and ready to serve.

Rich isn’t alone in his Trump-Watergate fantasy. It’s hard to avoid drawing some parallels between Tricky Dick and Teflon Don.

Like Trump, Richard Nixon’s Congress was stocked with allies. Nixon taped people (Trump, thus far, only lies about it). Nixon had Deep Throat, an aggrieved FBI guy, and Trump has James Comey, an aggrieved FBI guy. Nixon, like Trump, hated the press and loved his daughters and had a strange relationship with his wife.

The next part of the story, the fantasy goes, ends happily for the opposition. In Nixon’s case, journalists grabbed a thread and kept pulling. And within two years of his election, a president who had logged a record popular vote was quite literally peacing out of the White House.

Rich argues that Trump’s TBD-gate is unfolding at a comparable rate to Watergate. “You will find reason to hope that the 45th president’s path through scandal may wind up at the same destination as the 37th’s—a premature exit from the White House in disgrace—on a comparable timeline.”

Is it possible that Trump’s presidency will end in Nixonian disgrace? Sure. But there’s a much greater likelihood that it won’t, that Rich’s prediction will age about as well as Van Jones’ March 1 proclamation that Donald Trump “became president last night,” or Fareed Zakaria’s proclamation on April 7 that Donald Trump “became president last night.” If Trump somehow lurches through four or eight years, history will view the left’s starry-eyed Watergate dreams as in the same genre of smug as Clinton acolytes’ cockiness going into the final stretch of the 2016 presidential campaign. Litanies of Trump-Nixon comparisons amount to little more than fantasy, wastes of precious time that could have been better used on reality.

Take The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan’s new movie Dunkirk, which recreates the defense and evacuation of British and Allied forces from Northern France in May-June 1940 during the early stages of the World War II.

The blockbuster stars Jack Lowden, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy and, er, Harry Styles. It is set to be released July 21.

Plenty of people have taken to social media to express why they won’t be seeing it, and it’s all to do with the movie being “too white.” (Not sure if they’re aware, but the vast majority of British and Allied forces were white.)

Looking back at so many posts both here and at El Pollo Real, I'm struck by how often embedded videos become disabled over time making the posts nearly unitelligable. As I suggested long ago, YouTube, instead of killing creativity, should make copyrighted clips freely available at a nominal fee.

Here is an old post of mine -- one which still gets my eyes misty -- full restored:

Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines.

It happened on eight days in January and nine in February as well. All told, those transactions helped save Arizona electricity customers millions of dollars this year, though grid operators declined to say exactly how much. And California also has paid other states to take power.

No single entity is in charge of energy policy in California. This has led to a two-track approach that has created an ever-increasing glut of power and is proving costly for electricity users. Rates have risen faster here than in the rest of the U.S., and Californians now pay about 50% more than the national average.

Some idiot I used to know was convinced pepper in the eye wasn't nearly as painful as people made it sound. We just watched him pour pepper in his open eyes and laughed when the screaming began

I witnessed my friend kick a skunk in order to get it away from him. Bad decision.

Saw someone else decide to cut off a bus as both were approaching a red light. I was on the bus. Driver said "Hold on, this guy's a fucking idiot." We slammed into the truck, truck slammed into the light post across the intersection.

When I was about 7 yrs old I was in the car with my parents, going across the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario to Niagara Falls, NY. The deadly Niagara River is right below. There was quite a wait due to traffic so we were pretty much stopped. A bunch of teenagers were goofing around. Hopping out of their car and play fighting, etc. One guy hopped up on the railing of the bridge and did a handstand. It was terrifying. His friends yelled at him and he hopped down. Then he did it again and fell over the railing to his death.

Was in Yosemite doing a hike up to the top of (I think) Vernal Falls. Some kid from a large Church group decided to swim at the top in the (seemingly but not really) calm water at the top. I saw him get swept away and taken over the edge. The water has been running over there for thousands of years so the rocks are smooth and there's no vegetation. There's literally nothing to grab a hold of if it happened to you. Was not in the mood to see a kid die that day. Read the signs and please stay the hell out of the water like you're told.

I had a friend ask another friend to shoot him with a blow dart. First the guy shot him in the leg, but my friend thought that was too easy (he was an overly confident marine reserve), so he asked him to shoot him in the side. The guy did and it punctured his lung, though he wouldn't admit it.

Then, trying to play it cool, he decided to "go home," when really he was "going to the hospital." We all followed him to his car trying to convince him to let one of us drive or call an ambulance, but he just kept saying nothing was wrong. He collapsed right as he unlocked his car and we had to call 911. He's fine, aside from his injured ego and dim wits.

A girl I know spent $50,000 on a wedding for a marriage that lasted 6 months.

Later that month, someone at the Registrar’s Office called police after another employee saw a name they recognized on a registration form.

The name was the deceased father of a Rockingham County Judge.

“The Registrar’s Office discovered multiple instances of similarly falsified forms when it reviewed additional registrations. Some were in the names of deceased individuals while others bore incorrect middle names, birth dates, and social security numbers,” the spokesperson continued. “The Registrar’s Office learned that the individuals named in these forms had not in fact submitted the new voter registrations. The assistant registrar’s personal knowledge of the names of some of the individuals named in the falsified documents facilitated the detection of the crime.

“Spieles later admitted that he prepared the false voter registration forms by obtaining the name, age, and address of individuals from “walk sheets” provided to him by the Virginia Democratic Party, fabricating a birth date based on the ages listed in the walk sheet, and fabricating the social security numbers. Spieles admitted that he created all 18 fraudulent forms himself and that no one else participated in the crime.”

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Via Reddit: The 80-year-old threw nine coins at an engine of China Southern Airlines flight CZ380 as she was boarding on the tarmac. Eight of the coins missed their target but one nestled inside an engine, airport police said, adding that a passenger spotted her and reported it to authorities.

The incident was soon trending on Weibo and police added in a statement: "After investigation the involved passenger surnamed Qiu said she threw the coins to pray for safety. According to Qiu's neighbour, Qiu believes in Buddhism.

"The plane is boarding again for takeoff."

Hundreds of thousands of Weibo users had a field day, with one commenting sarcastically: "Grandma, this is not a wish fountain with turtles.

Via Instapundit: There was a time when Tinesha Zandamela would dig around for her wallet at a first date, anticipating that the guy would insist on paying.

That was before she went out with one who “forgot” his wallet, or the one who requested to split the check 50-50 after eating nearly all the food. Now when the bill arrives, she sits still, not even attempting what some call “the reach.”

“If you reach, you could end up with the entire bill,” said the 23-year-old in Provo, Utah. “No one is going to stop you.”

Love in the time of Tinder is upending an age-old tradition between men and women: that moment when the bill arrives and the woman feints for her wallet—but expects the guy will insist on paying.

"It's a business, people are like the media has an ethical phssssss... All the nice cutesy little ethics that used to get talked about in journalism school you're just like, that's adorable. That's adorable. This is a business."

According to the CNN Producer, business is booming. "Trump is good for business right now," he concluded.

Hillary won the nationwide popular vote by some 2.8 million votes. But Hillary won California by over 4 million votes. If we factor out California votes from the national totals for both candidates, Trump had some 58 millions votes nation wide vs. Hillary's 57 million.

Let's see if this works. Earlier this site slapped a no-can-do error message and yet played on another blogger test site that nobody ever sees. If this fails please click over to YouTube HERE and have your mind blown. And who doesn't want that?

Monday, June 26, 2017

This happened in New Orleans this past Saturday. These two poor saps were attending a Church conference when they decided to walk down the street to their hotel.

If you listen to the news reports you can hear the usual story. "Nothing to see here. It is perfectly safe. Crime is actually down statistically. Don't be racist. When they go to rob you just give it up. Don't disrespect them by having your head turned when they are playing the knockout game. Give up your white privilege."

What Church in their right mind would have a conference in New Orleans? Oh. The Unitarians. Never mind.

President Trump has it exactly right here. Make them live up to their own bullshit. They claim collusion and obstruction. While all the time Obama knew what the Russians were doing and did nothing. Most likely to cover up what he was doing.
What they did was have an opposition research firm make a phony dossier that was used by the partisan FBI to get a FISA warrant to tape Candidate Trump and his associates. Then that information was illegally unmasked and spread out through the government in the expectation that it would be leaked. There are literally dozens of felonies in that chain of events. Of course Mueller is not going to follow up on that as he is only tasked at destroying Trump with his merry band of Democratic Donor Lawyers and left wing partisans. Trump needs to clean the swamp. Now.

Acosta has been complaining about the White House’s increased use of off-camera briefings, and instead of waiting to be called on like other reporters Monday, he decided to shout out his questions. The Daily Caller counted a total of five interruptions during the briefing.

Spicer called on a reporter who had raised her hand and Acosta interjected himself and asked if President Trump believes the health care bill in the Senate is “mean.” Spicer replied, “There’s no camera on Jim.” Acosta then repeatedly asked, “Why don’t you turn the cameras on?” Spicer then apologized to the reporter Acosta was interrupting.

“I have a hacking question for the Obama administration: Why did you, quote, ‘choke’ in the name of one of their senior administration officials? Why did you do nothing? Why didn’t you inform candidate Trump?” Conway told host George Stephanopoulos. “I know you thought Hillary would win, but how could you not reveal important information about Russia hacking? ... I think the previous administration has a lot of questions to answer given this Russian obsession by everyone.”

Trump tweeted mockingly yesterday, “Hillary Clinton colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders. Is she allowed to so collude? Unfair to Bernie!”

Multiple U.S. and Japanese investigations are under way into how the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald and the much larger ACX Crystal container ship collided in clear weather south of Tokyo Bay in the early hours of June 17.

In the first detailed account from one of those directly involved, the cargo ship's captain said the ACX Crystal had signaled with flashing lights after the Fitzgerald "suddenly" steamed on to a course to cross its path.

The container ship steered hard to starboard (right) to avoid the warship, but hit the Fitzgerald 10 minutes later at 1:30 a.m., according to a copy of Captain Ronald Advincula's report to Japanese ship owner Dainichi Investment Corporation that was seen by Reuters.

The U.S. Navy declined to comment and Reuters was not able to independently verify the account.

The steady stream of attacks on centers of daily life have drawn pledges from Europeans not to let terrorists change how they live, but in ways large and small they already have

There is a heightened awareness and quicker reactions, especially in the hardest-hit countries of France, Britain and Belgium, that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago....

Tensions are high enough in central Paris that on Thursday the quick-response police unit reacted to a witness' phone call about a man wearing a sidearm by tackling him on the street, only to learn that he was a ranking member of the anti-terrorism squad, according to French media....

After suicide bombers in 2005 struck trains and buses during a busy London morning rush-hour, scores of commuters started riding bicycles to work. That method of transport has its own problems in London — with the number of annual cyclist deaths a rising concern.

Three of the four recent attacks, however, have involved the use of a vehicle as a weapon — much like the deadly 2016 Nice attack in France that killed 87 people.

"I suppose I could try taking a boat to work, but before long I'm sure they would attack those too. So I'm just taking my chances," said Rohan Chansity, a 34-year-old finance worker in London.

Parents and teachers are talking to children more about being observant — a skill often lost on a gadget-obsessed generation.

A suicide bomber blew himself up last month at Manchester Arena, killing 22 people, mostly young concert-goers.

"We talk about being observant, looking for exits, making sure you're around a responsible crowd - but in the end, it's not like I'm going to keep her from going to concerts," said Moira Campbell, 45, who has a 15-year-old daughter.

"As we noted just over a year ago, Burlington College, a small Vermont private school once led by the wife of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, said Monday it will close later this month, citing "the crushing weight" of debt incurred during the presidency of Jane Sanders who was in charge of the college until 2011." (Link to full ZeroHedge post)

According to WaPo, the college which enrolled 224 students as of fall 2014, said it faced financial troubles connected to its 2010 purchase of 32 acres of lakefront property from the Archdiocese of Burlington, according to the Burlington Free Press. The college said it had sold property to reduce its debt to a manageable level, but it was placed on probation in 2014 by its accrediting agency and it faced cash flow problems due to the imminent loss of a line of credit...

Jane Sanders stepped down in 2011 amid a dispute with the college’s board. After her husband launched his presidential campaign, news stories emerged that scrutinized her role in a loan application for the lakefront ­real-estate purchase. Jane Sanders has dismissed those stories as politically motivated and said the issue was not a factor in her departure from the college.

A Burlington College news release issued this morning called these financial hurdles insurmountable at this time.

Sanders' top adviser Jeff Weaver told CBS News the couple has sought legal protection over federal agents' allegations from a January 2016 complaint accusing then-President of Burlington College, Ms. Sanders, of distorting donor levels in a 2010 loan application for $10 million from People's United Bank to purchase 33 acres of land for the institution.

According to Politico, prosecutors might also be looking into allegations that Sen. Sanders' office inappropriately urged the bank to approve the loan.

Queen Elizabeth II gave a speech a few days ago and while her hats do garner attention this time her audience saw in it a clear transmission of meaning. They're convinced the queen relayed an overt political message. Because everything is political, must be political, even hats.

See, the blue is exactly the same blue and the stars are exactly the same shape and color and number, and the circular patterns are both exact circles. So it must be.

This obsession calls for ridicule. Irresistible to B3ta members. (In their world, rhymes with "Peter.") This week's challenge is to show the queen wearing hats that transmit political messages. Or else just be equally silly. Understand members are children. Even the very old members. British parody site B3ta has two pages of entries so far collected here. As usual, a few members miss the point of the challenge entirely. The challenge is still running.

Video publisher: "An untrained air traffic controller in FSX multiplayer tries to leave the tower while on-duty at the Boston Logan Int'l Airport, but not before he makes a snarky comment towards my piloting skills which causes me to return to the airport and show him what's up. Enjoy."

The Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this month threatened to subpoena the firm, Fusion GPS, after it refused to answer questions and provide records to the panel identifying who financed the error-ridden dossier, which was circulated during the election and has sparked much of the Russia scandal now engulfing the White House.

What is the company hiding? Fusion GPS describes itself as a “research and strategic intelligence firm” founded by “three former Wall Street Journal investigative reporters.” But congressional sources says it’s actually an opposition-research group for Democrats, and the founders, who are more political activists than journalists, have a pro-Hillary, anti-Trump agenda. (Link to more)

The fact is that that firms creating opposition research are often staffed with former journalists, who use their connections in the editorial world to redistribute this sort of thing. (Naturally, there are “right-leaning” as well as “left-leaning” firms of this sort.) Work in a newsroom long enough and you’ll begin to recognize “oppo” when you see it. Sadly, a number of journalists who were laid off by big news outfits and can’t find work elsewhere have resorted to doing this kind of work. As news organizations cut back on reporting, it’s easier than ever to get “oppo” published as news without sufficient fact-checking. What’s the opposite of a virtuous circle?

Wirtz and his co-authors conducted a first-of-its-kind meta-analysis of 78 peer-reviewed studies looking at the effects of sexual appeals in advertising. Their findings were posted online this week by the International Journal of Advertising.

Their research found that not only were study participants no more likely to remember the brands featured in ads with sexual appeals, they were more likely to have a negative attitude toward those brands, Wirtz said.

“The strongest finding was probably the least surprising, which is that males, on average, like ads with sexual appeals, and females dislike them,” Wirtz said. “However, we were surprised at how negative female attitudes were toward these ads.”